How do you stop a scrambling quarterback in 7v7 flag football?
In most 7v7 flag football leagues you do not have to stop the quarterback running at all, because the USA Football and high school rule books forbid him from carrying the ball across the line of scrimmage. What you are actually stopping is the scramble behind the line that buys him a better throwing angle, and the answer to that is one contain rusher plus coverage discipline rather than a spy. Check your own rulebook first, because a minority of adult leagues do let him run and a spy is the right call in those.
Your LB ends up here. It is the instinctive place to go and it is the wrong one, which is why this keeps happening to teams who are trying hard.
Why the sweep keeps working in 7v7
The rulebook usually answers this before you do
Under the USA Football 7-on-7 rule book and the high school 7v7 books the quarterback cannot directly run with the ball across the line of scrimmage. A defender assigned to watch him run is covering an outcome the rules forbid, which is the most expensive kind of mistake because nothing looks wrong until the completion arrives behind him.
The scramble is real, it just gains no yards by itself
He can still move behind the line for the whole seven seconds of the pass clock, and a quarterback who has drifted outside the pocket is throwing at defenders whose backs are turned. That is where the damage comes from, and because it arrives through the air the fix is a coverage fix rather than an assignment.
Two spare defenders means you can afford the right answer
Seven defenders against five eligible receivers leaves two players over. One takes contain on the edge and the other covers the running back, who is the player who can legally carry the ball here and the eligible receiver a 7v7 defense most often leaves to nobody at all.
Nobody is assigned to him, so he is free by default
Every other offensive player has a defender attached. The quarterback usually does not, because your defense was built to cover receivers, so the moment he decides to run he is the only player on the field nobody is accounting for. It is the most common way a youth defense gives up yards.
He will not try it early, and he will not stop once he has
A young quarterback runs the first time nothing is open and he panics. It works, because nobody was there, and from that point it becomes the first thing he does rather than the last. That is why this problem always appears in the second half.
Chasing him is the wrong shape of answer
A defender who turns and runs after a quarterback is behind him and staying behind him. What ends this is somebody standing in front of him before he starts, which costs the same body and asks far less of the player doing it.
Where he actually has to be
Same 7 defenders, same alignment. One job changes.
- The instinctWrong7v7: the LB takes the instinctive path.
Where a young defender goes when nobody has told him otherwise.
- The jobRight7v7: the LB takes his actual landmark.
Where the job is. Say it out loud before the snap and most of this page stops being a problem.
This is the landmark. Give it a name your players can repeat back to you. A spot with a name gets occupied; a spot described in a sentence does not.
Three answers, and what each one costs
Which of these is right depends on one line in your rulebook, so settle that before you settle the call.
Contain with one rusher from the edge
Where it excelsHe keeps the quarterback between the hashes, where your underneath defenders are already looking, and he does it without anybody being assigned to a run that cannot legally happen. One player, and the scramble stops being an escape.
Exposed · the flatHe is a rusher, so he is not in the flat he came from. An offense that throws quickly to that side has the emptiest part of the field to aim at.
Put your other spare defender on the running back
Where it excelsThe back is the player who can legally run it, and he is an eligible receiver before the handoff. One defender covers both jobs, and the moment the ball is handed off the seven-yard rush rule ends and the rest of your defense may come forward too.
Exposed · the middle underneathHe is committed to a person rather than to a space, so an offense that empties the backfield has removed him from the down before the snap and left your shallow middle thinner than the call sheet says.
Spy him anyway
Where it excelsIn the adult recreational and collegiate leagues that do allow the quarterback to run, this is simply the correct call, and two spare defenders make it cheaper at this size than at any smaller one.
Exposed · deepIn a league that forbids the run it is a defender spent on nothing. He stands in the middle watching the passer while the crosser he should have carried runs through the space behind him.
Read your rulebook, then contain and cover the back
If the quarterback may not cross the line, and in almost every youth and school league he may not, spend your two spare defenders on the edge and on the running back. Keep the spy in your pocket for the leagues that do allow the run, and take it out the moment you confirm yours is one of them.
What a good offense does about it
He scrambles and then throws
The most dangerous version, and the answer is coverage discipline rather than a better assignment. Tell your defenders to stay with their receivers when the quarterback breaks the pocket instead of drifting toward the ball, which is the moment a covered receiver becomes an open one.
They hand it off and throw it back to him
This is the legal way round the rule and every 7v7 offense eventually finds it. The quarterback becomes an eligible receiver once he has handed the ball off, so whoever has contain also has him, and the defender on the back has to pass the runner along rather than chase the ball.
Your league does let the quarterback run
Then this page inverts and the spy becomes the first call rather than the third. Give it to a middle underneath defender rather than to anybody deep, because a safety thinking about a run is a safety not defending the deep ball, and that trade turns a small problem into a large one.
When this is the wrong fix
When he is only running because you are covering well
A quarterback who runs after three seconds because nobody uncovered is a compliment. Do not change a coverage that is working to solve a problem it created, unless he is genuinely gaining yards rather than just moving.
When accounting for him leaves a receiver alone
The defender you assign to the quarterback is a defender who was covering somebody. If that somebody is their best receiver, you have traded a five-yard run for a chance at a longer play.
Take it to your team
Draw your plays in the football playmaker, collect them in the playbook maker, and print wristband play cards so every player knows them come Saturday.
Draw it for your own team
Open the designer at 7v7, put your defenders where this page says, and print it so everybody shows up on Saturday knowing the same thing.
Open the free play designerRelated questions
Can the quarterback run the ball in 7v7 flag football?
How do you stop a scrambling quarterback in 7v7?
Do you need a quarterback spy in 7v7?
Should a safety spy the quarterback?
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Coach Ray Carroll
Coaches 5v5 flag football from kindergarten through 7th grade in San Mateo and San Carlos, California, and built RC Football to design, teach and print the plays his own teams run.